First Electricity from Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm
After a successful installation of the first wind turbine in early January, operator Statoil and partners Masdar and Statkraft were able to set the first Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm turbine in production on 7 February delivering electricity to UK National Grid. The Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm site is located 32km offshore Norfolk, UK. It consists of 67 6MW wind turbine generators with a total installed capacity of 402MW producing 1.73TWh/year. This is equivalent to the consumption of more than 400,000 UK households. The installation of the remaining 66 wind turbine generators is expected to be completed by Q4-2017, when the wind farm will be fully operational.
The EUR 1.8 billion Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm project is part of Statoil’s strategy to gradually complement the oil and gas portfolio with profitable renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions. Statoil currently holds a 40% share in the Sheringham Shoal wind farm located offshore Norfolk, UK, which has been in production since 2012. The Hywind Scotland pilot park offshore Peterhead, Scotland, the world’s first floating wind farm, will come in production in late 2017. In 2016 Statoil acquired 50% of the Arkona offshore wind farm in Germany, which will come in production in 2019. Statoil was also declared the provisional winner of the U.S. government’s wind lease sale offshore New York at the end of 2016.